Pagina's

This week trial testimonies in the Wilders trial exposed new facts about dinner club Vertigo that invited trial expert witness Hans Jansen only days before his court testimony. As reported earlier, one of the Vertigo members is Judge Schalken who ordered the trial against Mr. Wilders. Another member is also an Amsterdam judge and yet another is a Haarlem district justice. An other new fact revealed is that the dinner club, during its eight year history, never did invite guests and that it’s only other invited guest was also invited for discussing the Wilders trial with the Vertigo members.

Today, a day after trial day 16, Hans Jansen published a blog on Dutch group blog Hoeiboei wich is a response to these latest trial developments:

If I had known before the May 3th 2010 dinner, that the members were not only a Haarlem district justice, but also a judge from the Amsterdam court, I would never have accepted the invitation. But nobody told me, I just heard about it a few days ago.

If I had known before the May 3th 2010 dinner, that I was only the second guest speaker from outside the Vertigo club, and that the first speaker also had talked about the Wilders trial, I would never have accepted the invitation. But nobody told me, I just heard about it a few days ago.

If I had known that I was the second guest speaker ever in this club, that both guest speakers had to speak about Wilders and his trial, that two members of the club were judges at the Amsterdam court, then the invitation would have triggered me to contact the justice department and Wilders his defense lawyer. Although I just don’t know if they would have ridiculed me for it.

I think it could be very instructive if the Justice department would also question the first speaker, Paul Scheffer, about his activities at the Vertigo dinner club. What has been discussed that evening about the trial? How did they portray to him the focus of that evening? How far did the judges go? On the other hand, Paul Scheffer is of course also a member of the leftwing church.

"I am not influenced" can mean that nobody has managed to influence my opinion, but it can also mean that nobody has spoken to me to try to influence my opinion. I have not always been aware of the ambiguity of this.[note: this is a reference to press accusations that Hans Jansen has been inconsistent about his allegation of being influenced by Schalken]

The Wilders trial will keep producing blunders and incident for years if nobody puts a stop on it. The cause is clear: Dutch law is currently not well equipped for handling opinion crimes. Maybe the PvdA (Labour Party) can take the initiative for drafting a new law book for these opinion crimes? Together with D66 (Left Liberals) and the GroenLinks (Greens) they surely can find a majority in support for this.